


Trust Exercise

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Dragon Who, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You’re not serious." / “I’m always serious,” said the Doctor, which was a lie if Jamie ever heard one.</i> In which Jamie is scared of heights and the Doctor is a dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust Exercise

**Author's Note:**

> Dragon Who is [laurelhach](http://laurelhach.tumblr.com)'s AU and it is wonderful. [Details](http://laurelhach.tumblr.com/dragon_who) / [art of dragon!Two](http://laurelhach.tumblr.com/post/107254869287/dragonloaf-two-and-sleepy-jamie).
> 
> Now with [art by Laurelhach!](http://laurelhach.tumblr.com/post/128965057912/not-so-bad-once-youre-up-is-it-said-the)

The research station was a dirty smudge against the perfect white plane of the mountainside. When Jamie squinted he could just make out a plume of smoke rising from its chimney, fine as sewing thread. He hugged his puffy coat more tightly around himself, the cold biting his bare knees. 

“Hmm.” The Doctor shuffled up to the cliff-edge alongside him and whipped a spyglass out from somewhere within the folds of his coat. He peered through it. “That’s not so far,” he declared.

“Not so far?” said Jamie as the Doctor pressed the glass into his hands. He looked down at the icy valley and shuddered. “It’ll take days to get out there.” He raised the spy-glass to his eye. Through it he could make out the individual buildings.

Behind him, there was an organic rustling, a whistling of displaced air. He glanced over his shoulder briefly, unamused. Now didn’t strike him as the time. 

“Oh, not as the crow flies,” said the Doctor – what Jamie was coming to understand was the _real_ Doctor. Not a little man in a shabby overcoat but a dark, scaley beast that stood taller than he did.

It took him a moment to understand the Doctor’s meaning. “Oh, aye,” he said vaguely, handing the Doctor back his spyglass. It vanished off into – wherever the contents of the Doctor’s coat went when he was in his natural form. He hadn’t asked. He suspected he wouldn’t get a straight answer. The Doctor half-crouched beside him, bringing his head down to Jamie’s height. There was an encouraging look in his blue eyes. He unfurled his wings, shaking them out like an old umbrella.

Jamie looked from the Doctor to the yawning chasm between them and the research station. “I think you’re forgetting something,” he said.

“Oh, am I?” said the Doctor, blinking. Jamie rested a hand upon the top of his head, touching the tough fur there.

“I dinnae have wings,” said Jamie.

“That’s quite alright,” said the Doctor. “I don’t mind.” He crouched down still lower.

Jamie blinked at him, still not following. There was some serious lapse of logic here. It didn’t make any difference whether the Doctor minded or not. It wouldn’t change the fact that Jamie couldn’t fly. 

Then the Doctor said, “on my back, now,” and Jamie got it.

“You’re not serious,” he said.

“I’m always serious,” said the Doctor, which was a lie if Jamie ever heard one. “Hop on. We haven’t got all day.”

Jamie shook his head wordlessly, stepping back from the Doctor, from the dizzying drop that lay before them. 

The Doctor’s ears went flat to his head, which either meant he was disappointed or frustrated, Jamie couldn’t quite tell yet. “Why not?”

“You’re nae big enough,” said Jamie, which was a flimsy excuse for the Doctor was plenty big enough.

“I am too,” said the Doctor, puffing up his chest, affronted. “And I’m quite strong enough,” he added.

Jamie swallowed, trying to suppress his rising nausea at the thought of being suspended above that drop. “What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you,” the Doctor said plainly. “There’d be plenty of time. We’re high enough up.” Which really didn’t help matters at all.

“No,” said Jamie, meaning it to be final. He crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly on the snowy ground, where he meant them to stay.

With a crisp _flump_ the Doctor’s tail dropped to the ground, curling around his feet, drawing him closer in. “You’re not scared of heights, are you, Jamie?”

Jamie scoffed. “Who, me?”

“Then what’s the problem?” The Doctor crouched back down. “Hop on. No time to waste.” When Jamie hesitated, he said, “you can trust me,” and smiled his funny repitilian smile.

He either had to swallow his pride or swallow his fear. One or the other. He took a deep breath and swallowed his fear, scrambling awkwardly atop the Doctor. It wasn’t a bit like sitting on a horse, which he supposed was just as well, since he had a hunch the Doctor would be offended by the comparison. His back was quite a different shape, not to mention smooth and scaled. The edges of his scales scraped the inside of Jamie’s legs a bit, but other than that it wasn’t an uncomfortable position to be in.

“Alright. Hold on good and tight, now,” said the Doctor, stretching out his wings in preparation for take off. Out – out – out. Jamie hadn’t realised just how big they were before. He’d almost never seen the Doctor flying, and certainly never at such close quarters.

“Hold on to what?” he said, scrabbling at the smooth skin of the Doctor’s back and neck. “You’re all over smooth.”

“Oh, use your head.” The Doctor gave his wings a shake. Jamie bit his lip and tried to get a hold of the Doctor’s stubby horns. The Doctor shrugged him off. “Not my horns, please.”

“Och, then where –” Jamie gave up arguing and flung his arms desperately around the Doctor’s neck. 

“Here we go,” said the Doctor, uncannily cheerful. Jamie squeezed his eyes tight shut and held on for dear life.

He felt the ground drop away beneath them, the Doctor’s wings beating a great _whoosh, whoosh, whoosh_. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and he barely suppressed a whimper of fear, pressing his face into the Doctor’s scaley neck. He could feel the Doctor’s twin hearts pumping hard beneath his skin.

He didn’t dare breathe, let alone move or speak, till he felt them level out. He took a breath, shuddered, and instantly froze. The slightest movement made him feel like he was about to tumble to an icy death.

“Not so bad once you’re up, is it?” said the Doctor, his voice half-whipped away by the wind and the sound of his own wing-beats. “I say, Jamie! Look at that view!”

“I’m no’ looking at anything,” Jamie said into the Doctor’s neck.

“What’s that?” the Doctor called. Jamie felt him shift, muscles tensing. “Oh, Jamie. Open your eyes!”

Jamie shook his head, and immediately regretted it. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t even move. “Jamie,” said the Doctor in a warning tone. “Open your eyes?”

He sucked in a breath and, very slowly, opened his eyes, turning his head slightly outwards. The cold wind made his eyes water. He blinked away the tears. And immediately looked down.

“I didn’t say look down,” the Doctor said ruefully as Jamie yelped and pressed his face back into his neck.

Jamie breathed, and took another look. Slowly, he lifted his head, taking a proper look around himself.

They were suspended, tiny, between the flawless blue sky above and the jagged mountains below. Jamie’d never seen anything so blindindly white in all his life. It was so unchanging they might not have been moving at all, just hanging in the sky like a decoration on a child’s mobile. It took his breath away.

Carefully, doing whatever he could not to look down, he raised himself up into a proper sitting position, and sat half-hugging the Doctor’s neck. “What did I tell you?” said the Doctor.

“It’s perfect,” said Jamie, numbly. He couldn’t think of a thing else to say.

“Are you alright?” said the Doctor.

“Aye,” said Jamie. “Why wouldn’t I be?” As if they weren’t hundreds of feet above the ground, with only the Doctor’s delicate wings between them and a grisly death.

“I can feel you shaking,” the Doctor chided.

“I’m nae very good with heights,” Jamie confessed.

“You’re perfectly safe,” said the Doctor in his most soothing tone. Though his next words chilled Jamie to the bone. “Although,” he said, and Jamie’s heart sank. “Now that we’re up, perhaps I ought to tell you.”

He fell silent. “Tell me _what_?”

“I’m a little rusty,” said the Doctor. “That’s all.”

“How’d you mean, _rusty_?” Jamie said.

“Well, I’ve not had much cause to use these old wings of mine lately,” said the Doctor. “And to tell the truth, I’ve never carried anyone before.”

“What’d you mean, you’ve never –”

“But don’t worry,” said the Doctor, never brighter. “It’ll just be a touch bumpy on the way down. Now, hold on tight. We’re almost there.”

Jamie looked ahead, and found that the mountainside was rushing towards them, the smudge of the station growing larger and larger. “I _am_ holding on tight,” he said.

“Well, hold on tighter,” snapped the Doctor. Jamie threw himself forward, hugging the Doctor’s neck as tight as he could. “Oof! Not that tight. Yes, that’s better. Now, here we go.”

He banked. Jamie slipped upon his smooth back, only his grip on the Doctor’s neck saving him from the fall. The mountain was rushing towards them faster now. His stomach turned a neat somersault. He buried his face in the Doctor’s neck. “I’m goin’ tae die,” he pronounced.

“Oh, piffle,” said the Doctor. “Piffle-paffle.” His wings beat harder as he circled down, down towards the snowy mountainside. Jamie felt like he was going to fly off any second. He yelped. “Oh, my giddy aunt,” he heard the Doctor moan before, in a rush of yells and wingbeats, they crashed.

Jamie flew off the Doctor’s back. For a helpless second he seemed to be tumbling through empty space. Then he hit solid – solid-ish – earth and rolled, coming to a halt half-buried in a snowbank, where he lay stunned.

He came to face down in the snow and most put out. He rolled over onto his back, spat out a mouthful of half-melted snow, and lay panting, one hand on his own puffy chest, staring up at the icy blue sky, numb.

Relief like nothing he’d felt before flooded him, relief at being back on solid ground, relief at still being alive. He relished the feel of his heart thumping in his chest, the sight of his desperate breaths fogging the air. His eyes watered at the sunlit glare. He threw an arm across his face.

“Jamie?” The Doctor called somewhere nearby. “Jamie?” Heavy footsteps crunched across the snow. 

A moment later, a blunt snout nudged at his face with gentle urgency. “Get off,” said Jamie, shoving him away.

“Oh, splendid,” said the Doctor. “You’re alright.”

“Just winded.” Jamie heaved himself into a sitting position. He took off one padded glove and rubbed a bare hand over his face. They were still shaking, his hands.

“Touch of vertigo,” said the Doctor, slouched in the snow beside him. “Happens to the best of us. Well, not to me, of course. But it’s quite common in humans, or so I’m told.”

“Eh?” said Jamie.

“Vertigo,” the Doctor repeated. “Fear of heights.”

“Och, I wasnae _scared_ ,” said Jamie. He looked at the Doctor’s long, lizardy face, at the fond look in his eyes, and knew that he’d been caught lying. But the Doctor was good enough not to say so. 

The Doctor dipped his head forward, nudging Jamie’s face again. Jamie shrugged him off, even though he didn’t mind. “No bones broken, eh?” He clambered to his feet, shaking a little snow off his grey-black skin. His wings were gone, vanished back into wherever they went when the Doctor wasn’t using them. Jamie had asked, and hadn’t understood the answer. “Let’s get up to the station, shall we? Haven’t got all day.”

“I’m coming,” said Jamie, hauling himself upright. “I’m coming.” He dusted off his coat and shoved his glove back on. His legs were shaky. He stamped his feet, getting his bearings on solid ground. He felt like he’d been in the air for days rather than minutes.

“Shall we?” The Doctor, a little way ahead, began to amble up the mountain, his tale cutting a smooth, curling trail into the snow.

“What, like that?” Jamie nodded at the Doctor’s scaley frame. “You’ll scare ‘em half to death.”

The Doctor looked down at himself as if he’d quite forgotten which guise he was in. “Oh, yes,” he said, and folded in on himself like a collapsing telescope, inky-black scales fluttering into inky-black coat. He brushed himself down, rubbing at his lined face like it was new to him. “Better?”

“Much,” said Jamie, plodding up the rise to join him.

They walked together up the path to the research station, the Doctor’s hand pressing lightly between his shoulder-blades before settling on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I think I know what I did wrong. I’m sure it’ll be much smoother next time.”

“Next time?” said Jamie. “What d’you mean, next time?” The Doctor laughed – to himself, Jamie thought – and squeezed Jamie’s shoulder.

“Next time,” he repeated firmly, before releasing Jamie’s shoulder and jogging along up the path, calling for Jamie to join him. Jamie rolled his eyes and followed, just as he always would.


End file.
